Chief Characteristics of Romantic Poetry (2)
d. Melancholy A romantic is a dissatisfied individual. The poet may be dissatisfied with the circumstances of his own life, with his age, with literary conventions and traditions of the day, or with the general fate humanity. Romantic poetry is, therefore, often pessimistic in tone. A romantic may revolt against the existing conditions and may seek to reform them, or he may try to escape into an imaginative world of his own creation. Often the poet escapes into the past. The middle ages have a special fascination for him for they not only provide him with an escape from the sordid realities of the preset but also delight his heart by their colour pageantry and magic. b. Love of Nature Zest for the beauties of the external world characterizes all romantic poetry. Romantic poetry carries as away from the suffocating atmosphere of cities into the fresh invigorating company of the out-of door world. It not only sings s of the sensuous beauty of nature, but also sees into the ”heart of thin...